


storms are nicer if you aren't caught out in the goddamn rain

by stuffandsundry



Category: Persona 5
Genre: M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 20:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12733623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuffandsundry/pseuds/stuffandsundry
Summary: It's starting to rain, Yusuke thinks irritably. Wonderful. You'd think it'd at least be snowing in the winter.





	storms are nicer if you aren't caught out in the goddamn rain

**Author's Note:**

> (takes place during December)  
> i have CONQUERED THE INDIGNITY OF TIME, VANQUISHED GOOGLE CALENDAR, AND SLAM DUNKED MY PROCRASTINATING ASS (procrasstinating?) RIGHT INTO THE WASTEBASKET CALLED pRODUCTIVITY AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA. HAHAHA, HAPPY BIRDTHDAY JEM!!!!

Yusuke heads home from Yongen-Jaya in a bit of a _mood._

Today's foray into Shido's Palace had been, perhaps, less than a complete success. Even though they'd stayed for a considerable length of time— long enough that the sun was hours gone when they'd returned to the real world, long enough that Yusuke could see the bone-deep exhaustion in the way that each of his compatriots carried themselves— it seemed that they were still no closer to finding the fourth cognition that had the letter they needed.

Perhaps today had simply been an unlucky day for the Phantom Thieves? Haru had been knocked flat with critical hits over and over, Akira had led them all straight into a group of Shadows while in mice form, Makoto had been taken hostage by a Parvati in one harrowing fight, and so on and so forth. Yusuke recalls with a wince how Ann, Akira _and_ Morgana had all succumbed to sleep in one… distinctly memorable battle. For all that the Titania had been as ethereally beautiful as their mythological origins suggested, Yusuke thinks sourly, they sure loved to ensure that their opponents spent the majority of their time passed out on the floor.

It was the kind of experience that weighed down on people. Ryuji had been frozen over on at least five different occasions, and his teeth had still been chattering slightly when he'd left the café. Even if it was only a psychosomatic effect, it still couldn’t possibly have been comfortable. And he wasn't the only one, Yusuke admits begrudgingly. He himself was still feeling slightly light headed from all the Narcissus. Maybe it was for the best that he'd been planning on an early night.

…Though, the thought of doing some sketches _was_ tempting. The Palace might have been garish in a way that was viscerally offensive to Yusuke's sensibilities, but perhaps—

A drop of water falls on Yusuke's cheek, and another. He stops in the middle of the sidewalk to look at the clouded sky. It's raining now?

His only answer is more rain.

Fan _tastic._ What a thematically appropriate way to end an absolutely awful day.

With a sigh, Yusuke fishes out the convenience store umbrella he keeps on him at all times and forges forwards. The wind's picking up too. He should hurry home before this became a full-fledged storm.

Where was he? Yes. Sketches.

While the mindless opulence of the Palace had been disgusting, it had also reminded him of the way that he'd tried to paint Mementos a while back. Though he'd eventually seen the fundamental mistake in simply painting a still life of Mementos and attempting to pass it off as some profound statement on the human condition, what if… he drew the Palace?

Well. Not a direct drawing of the Palace— he certainly wasn't raring to go back in there so soon, not after today— but something inspired by it. Something that drew the eye in with grandiose majesty before evoking discomfort with oppressive opulence, something that made the viewer uncomfortable, yes, but with purpose! It might not be the kind of piece that he'd ever finish, much less be glad to put in a gallery, Yusuke admits to himself. But it _would_ be something he could channel his current frustration and disgust into, since brutalizing Shadows in Shido's Palace was very clearly not an option right now. Why, Yusuke could practically see it in his mind's eye— something baroque, maybe? Drawing on the tradition of sensual richness and grandeur— or, wait—

Thus lost in thought, Yusuke continues on his path towards his destination. The rain gets heavier, and the wind blows harder. Yusuke walks faster. It’s _cold,_ and he wants to get back to his dorm as fast as possible.

Fifteen minutes later, and a scant few blocks away from his dorm, he's jolted out of his own thoughts by a loud outburst.

" _Sh-shit!_ "

Yusuke stops. A loud, _familiar_ outburst, distinct despite the white noise of the downpour.

"...Ryuji?"

Sure enough, he spots a familiarly colorful figure across the street. Ryuji is huddled in the eave of a closed store, swearing as he fumbles at something on the ground.

This encounter is something of a surprise. Typically, everyone goes their separate ways after Phantom Thieves meetings. While Yusuke had heard Ryuji declare his intent to jog home instead of taking the subway today, he'd never before realized that Ryuji's house was in this area— he's never seen Ryuji on his way home before. Well, either way, he was here now.

Perhaps they could walk together, partway back.

At the very least, Yusuke decides, he had an umbrella and Ryuji clearly did not, and it would be remiss of him to not offer. So, Yusuke crosses the road. As he gets closer, he notices that Ryuji's drenched, and shivering violently. Concerning. Maybe that's why he doesn't look up until Yusuke is standing right next to him. He'd been trying to pick up his phone, Yusuke notes.

"C-cheapass piece of crap come the eff on… Wha— Yusuke? What're you doin' here?"

Yusuke frowns. "I'm walking back to the Kosei dorms," he says. "Aren't you headed home as well?"

"...Kosei? Shit. Th-that's not— How th'hell did I get this lost, I know how to get home, I s-swear— stupid phone, always crappin' out on me at th'worst times." Ryuji swears as he clumsily wipes at the screen of his phone with limited success.

"Is your house in this direction?" Yusuke asks him curiously.

Ryuji shakes his head in irritation. "Yeah, this is th' direction Gohongi's in, ain't it?"

"No it isn't." Yusuke points out.

"What? No, I'm. I'm… s-s-sure— dammit— I turned left at, uh...." Ryuji insists, despite evidence to the contrary. He rubs his face with the back of one hand. He's breathing strangely, Yusuke observes. Short, sharp breaths with a wavering quality to them, and Yusuke can't help but feel a spike of concern.

"Are you alright, Ryuji?" He says, carefully.

"I think… I'm not thinkin’ straight." Ryuji says. He stares at the phone in his hands like it holds the answers to everything he's ever wanted to know. Yusuke takes a quick glance at it. It's just a phone. The edges are scuffed, and the screen is cracked from all the times Ryuji's dropped it in the past.

On a whim, Yusuke puts one hand on Ryuji's shoulder.

He's _freezing cold._ And still shivering. Yusuke’s thoughts run right past ‘mild concern’ to ‘mild hypothermia.’

And with that in mind, his decision is hardly a decision at all.

"You're coming with me. I don't trust in your ability to get home by yourself." Yusuke declares. "My dorm is fairly close by; and at the very least, I can keep watch over you there."

Yusuke doesn't wait for Ryuji to accept his not-a-proposal as he takes Ryuji's icy hand and attempts to leads him down the street. Ryuji limps after him to the best of his ability. Is his knee locking up in the cold weather? Yusuke stops and lets go of Ryuji's hand, in order to wrap his arm around Ryuji's waist as support.

"H-hey, you're g'nna get wet too, I c-c-can walk!" Ryuji sputters in protest.

"Perhaps," Yusuke says. "However, we'll certainly move faster this way. And you're too late, anyways. I'm already holding onto you; therefore I am already wet, so I can either be wet and helping you, or I can be wet and watching you limp along like a half-drowned stray in the rain. Clearly, one option is superior to the other, so let's get going."

Ryuji frowns and mouths "half-drowned stray?" to himself before sighing and leaning on Yusuke. "Ain’t g-gonna argue when y’r like this. Lead th' way, Fox," he mumbles into Yusuke's shoulder. "C-countin' on ya."

Yusuke tightens his grip on Ryuji, and starts walking.

* * *

It's been a frankly troublesome four blocks. Yusuke's umbrella isn't _quite_ big enough for two people, and Ryuji seems incapable of walking in a straight line—

Ryuji steps on Yusuke's foot _yet again_ and stumbles. "Sh-shit. S'ry."

He sounds genuinely frustrated with himself.

Yusuke sighs internally. He wasn't being fair to Ryuji. Yusuke amends the thought in his head. Ryuji is being _far_ more clumsy than he typically is. But it couldn't be helped. Yusuke readjusts his grip on Ryuji. At this point, the only thing holding him upright might be Yusuke.

So Yusuke studiously ignores the way that Ryuji's drenched clothing is also making his own coat damp and uncomfortable, and he suffers through the way that Ryuji can barely go a few steps without tripping or stepping on his shoes. They're almost at the dorm. In fact, Yusuke can see the familiar structure down the road right now.

He picks up the pace. Woe betide any unfortunate student that crossed Yusuke's path right this second, because he had absolutely no patience left for things like, say, "Kitagawa, who is that?" or "Kitagawa, you're not allowed to something about regulations,” because Yusuke was starting to squelch with every step. It was uncomfortable, in a manner only amplified by the tantalizing thought of relative warmth and comfort just a few meters away. And if _Yusuke_ was feeling discomfitted from the damp and the chill, he couldn't imagine what Ryuji must be feeling. Possibly not much of anything, if it was cold enough.

Thankfully, everyone else is inside like sensible people, so it's a relatively simple matter to smuggle a non-Kosei student into the dorms. Yusuke wrests Ryuji up the stairs and props him up against the wall. Keys keys keys, where did he— ah. There we go.

The door unlocks with a heavy _clinck-clunk_ , and Yusuke manhandles Ryuji into the room. It's pitch black before Yusuke fumbles his way to the light switch, at which point the small, familiar dorm room comes into view. There's a bunk bed in the corner of the room. Ryuji can go on the top bunk for the night, Yusuke decides. It's not as if he has a roommate at the moment— the last one left two weeks ago and the school administration hasn't found him a new one yet.

He sets Ryuji down with great care on the chair next to the other desk in the room that technically isn’t for Yusuke’s use (but has been buried under a layer of sketchbooks and assorted art paraphernalia anyways.)

"Stay here." Yusuke orders, somewhat superfluously. He doesn't exactly expect Ryuji to wander off, after all. And indeed, Ryuji does seem to be more inclined to just sit there and shiver in sopping wet clothing. Those _had_ to go.

To that end, Yusuke goes hunting for a towel. Along the way, he quickly shucks his own rain-splattered coat off, and throws it in the laundry basket. He'll change into sleepwear later. Ah, he should get clothes for Ryuji, too. Yusuke searches his wardrobe for a minute. This old nightshirt should do— it's a good thing that he's somewhat taller than Ryuji.

When he looks back at the room, Ryuji's propped his forearms up against the back of the chair. He's curled up, and his head is resting on the desk, cradled in his arms.

Hm. Is he dozing off already? That's not good.

Yusuke walks back to his side and shakes him awake. "Ryuji. Ryuji? You can't fall asleep in that, wake up."

It takes a few seconds, but Ryuji stirs. "Mmngfh…?"

Assuming that Ryuji was trying to say 'Why did you wake me up?', Yusuke answers accordingly. "Ryuji. I strongly suspect that you may have hypothermia right now, and you can't stay in those clothes. I'm taking them off."

Yusuke tugs at the sleeves of Ryuji’s jacket and pulls it off with little resistance. It’s surprisingly heavy, what with all the water. Yusuke throws it to the side, and closes his fingers around the hem of Ryuji's shirt and pulls up. At this, Ryuji finally jolts back to something resembling lucidity.

Which would be a positive sign, if his reaction wasn't to squawk and clamp his arms down on his sides. "What're y'd-doing?!"

"Taking your shirt off." Yusuke says. What _else_ would he be doing?

"Why?!?"

Wait. Is Ryuji… blushing? He can't possibly—

"We've been in a _public bath_ together." Yusuke points out, slightly incredulous. "Now is not the time to suddenly become a prude, Ryuji!"

He yanks more forcefully at Ryuji's shirt. "Arms. _Up_."

Ryuji raises his arms, halfheartedly. This tips of his ears are bright red, and he studiously looks everywhere except at Yusuke. Absolutely ridiculous. (And also, perhaps, a good thing. Because while Yusuke wasn't thinking of how this would look to an outsider before, he certainly is now. Yusuke's blushing now too and he hates it. Honestly, trust Ryuji to make this all about _sex._ )

_Ryuji,_ Yusuke gripes to himself, _is such an idiot_.

…But Yusuke would rather he not be a severely ill idiot, so when he finally has Ryuji's garish graphic t-shirt in his hands, he drops it in a heap with the jacket and drapes his towel over Ryuji's head. He starts drying him off.

"Remove your own pants, if you're so opposed to me doing it for you," he says somewhat snippily. Privately, Yusuke doubts that Ryuji currently has the hand-eye coordination to do so, but it's _his_ fault for making this weird. And it was more efficient time-wise to get him started on that while Yusuke was working with the towel, anyways.

It takes Ryuji a while to figure out the belt buckle, but he does eventually manage to wriggle his uniform slacks down to his knees, where they get too bunched up to come off easily. Yusuke takes pity on him and tug the bottoms of Ryuji's pant legs to get them off completely, leaving him completely naked except for pink and green watermelon print boxers.

Hm.

If he asked Ryuji to take his underwear off too he'd probably yell again. Annoying.

But although this set of circumstances was far from ideal, it should be somewhat passable. As long as Ryuji was dry, then he should hopefully start to warm up. With that in mind, Yusuke starts to help Ryuji into his old, slightly threadbare nightshirt. Paint stains the hem, and there’s a large, suspicious scorch mark on one sleeve that Yusuke would really rather forget about, but something is better than nothing.

Ryuji yawns as Yusuke does up the buttons. His eyes begin to flutter shut again. “Thanks, Yusuke.”

“Think nothing of it,” Yusuke responds, almost absentmindedly. He frowns as he looks up at the top bunk and mentally calculates the amount of time it would take to get out his spare bedding and make the bed, and the effort it would take to get Ryuji up the ladder, and—

Ah. A thought occurs— this was a level of wholly unnecessary overcomplication. The simplest solution to this would simply be—

Yusuke guides Ryuji a few steps over to the bottom bunk, and pushes him down. Ryuji blinks at him and tries to get back up. "Y'ske?"

Yusuke dumps his comforter over him. "Go to sleep," he orders.

He doesn't stand watch to make sure Ryuji follows his instructions— if he had a hard time staying awake sitting upright, then it would surely be much easier to slip off while prone.

With this in mind, Yusuke goes to take a quick shower and change. He catches himself yawning more than once. Perhaps, Yusuke admits to himself, he was feeling tired enough to retire as well. So much for getting in some time for sketching before bed. Yusuke feels a slight pang of regret at the thought, but for once, the thought of rest is more tempting than the siren call of his sketchbook.

Yusuke flicks off the dorm room light and makes his way back to his bunk. He gently shoves a snoring Ryuji closer to the wall, and climbs in. It's a tighter squeeze than Yusuke is used to, but not intolerable. He's slept in worse.

"Goodnight, Ryuji." Yusuke says. He closes his eyes.

The rain falls _pitter-patter_ against the window, and thunder rumbles in the far distance.

* * *

Ryuji wakes slowly to the sound of rain against the window. Damn, it's still going? He'd thought that it was bad yesterday already, going anywhere today was gonna be a huge pain in the—

His eyes snap open. The faint morning light seeping through the window is the wrong color, it's coming at the wrong angle, this bed was wrong, these were not his clothes, and _who the frick was lying on top of him oh god what happened last night._

Where the hell is he?!

Ryuji tries to get up to look for his phone or something but— jeez, whoever this mysterious person lying on top of him was, they were pretty heavy. And with the way that they were half sprawled over Ryuji and using him as some kind of pillow or stuffed animal or something, it's kinda hard to move at all. Ryuji squints in the grey morning light, and cranes his neck at an attempt to get a better look at them. Pretty bony, probably a dude, shortish straight dark ha— waitaminute.

…Yusuke? Holy shit, that’s totally Yusuke. Wait, did that mean that this was his dorm?

Ryuji takes a quick look around. Okay. Honestly, Ryuji wouldn't be surprised, there was a lot of weird arty shit in the room. Or at the very least, there was a lot of stuff that could be art stuff? It's not like Ryuji can really tell, in this shit lighting.

Yusuke stirs slightly, and tightens his grip on Ryuji.

"...Yusuke?" Ryuji whispers uncertainly. "You awake? Uh, not that I'm mad or anything but like how the _hell_ did I get here?"

Yusuke cracks open one eyelid. "Mmmmn… feeling better. That's good." His breath is warm on Ryuji's neck, as he yawns. "Too early in the morning for this, though. Go back to sleep."

He proceeds to tuck his head into the crook of Ryuji's neck, and his breath evens out almost instantly.

"Wait, Yusuke, it's gotta be like six already and I have so many questions… uh. Yusuke? Yusuke??"

Yusuke doesn't respond. Is he actually asleep, or just ignoring Ryuji? Honestly, either option seemed pretty dang possible. Ryuji sighs.

Goddamnit.

It's not as if Ryuji can get up with Yusuke holding onto him so tightly, but also _wow_ this was kinda weird, wasn't it? So he just kinda… lies there, awkwardly stiff, for a few minutes. But that gets really uncomfortable fast, so Ryuji stops doing that.

Rain continues to fall, and in the soothing white noise, Ryuji can feel his eyelids droop again. Maybe Yusuke had a point. It _was_ pretty damn early in the morning. Ryuji didn’t need answers right this second, did he?

Sleeping in… did sound pretty damn good.

So Ryuji closes his eyes, and proceeds to pass the fuck out.

The rain keeps falling.

**Author's Note:**

> anyways, both of them wake up at like one pm with awful colds and are Suffering for like solid two days, Ryuji's mom tells him that it serves him right for making her worry about him all night while she makes soup and dotes on the both of them,
> 
> (also as a side note i used to own a nightie with slightly suspect scorch marks on the sleeves, and— you know what, i'll skip the boring part, the moral of the story is always cook on gas stoves in tshirts, sleeves are the devil, and also never cook with a fire alarm in the house if you can help it)


End file.
